Cultural divide between IT and OT teams leaves 65% of organizations unable to secure both environments

2021-11-16 05:00

The study reveals a cultural divide between IT and OT teams that affects the ability to secure both the IT and the ICS/OT environment.

Thirty-nine percent have IT and OT teams that work together cohesively to achieve a mature security posture across both environments.

"Bridging the cultural divide between IT and OT teams is a significant challenge. But organizations must not fall into the trap of thinking that OT can just be tacked onto an existing IT program or managed under a general IT umbrella. There are fundamental differences between the problems and goals of a corporate IT environment-data safety and security-and industrial environments, where human health and safety, loss of physical production, and facility shutdowns are real risks. Deep domain expertise as well as ICS/OT-specific technologies are both required to truly safeguard industrial systems."

Only 32% cite competition between IT and OT for budget dollars and new security projects and only 27% have difficulty in converging security teams across IT and OT as an enterprise-wide security program.

48% of respondents say their organizations understand the unique cyber risks and have specific security processes and policies for OT and ICS environments.

Reporting relationships and accountability for OT security are not properly structured and become deterrents to investing in OT and ICS. Fifty-six percent of respondents say the reason for blocking investments is that OT security is managed by the engineering department which does not have security expertise, and 53% of respondents say OT security is managed by an IT department without engineering expertise.

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